


To The Brink

by Savrola



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birth, Blood, Cesarean Section, Domestic, I'm Sorry, Intersex, M/M, Mild Gore, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:06:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19129840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savrola/pseuds/Savrola
Summary: -- In all his life, when has Ike ever cut anything gently? --He presses the blade to Soren's skin.--(Ike has to cut his child from the belly of the man he loves, or else he risks losing them both.)





	To The Brink

**Author's Note:**

> No I'm serious, if you get squeamish about blood don't read this. This is a graphic depiction of a c-section.
> 
> Don't ask me why I write any of this. I don't even know.
> 
> I guess if you want cute domestic stuff after leave kudos/comments?

Ike sits crouched at Soren's side, knife in hand. It's large, freshly sharp (Soren had done it himself, face calm as if it was only meant for cutting stew vegetables) and heavy in his hand.

The man who slew a God hesitates and puts the knife down. "How do you know it's time? Can't we wait a little more?"

Seated across Soren on the floor is Rhys, only just starting to show his own anxiety; the wideness of his eyes is Ike's answer.

"I'll do it myself," Soren says. He's been in labor for hours with nothing to show for it; how he has the strength to raise his hand and offer it to take the knife from Ike, he'll never know, but he strains with the effort and grits his teeth.

("Branded are not simply part beorc and part laguz," Stefan had told them once they'd found his oasis in the Grann Desert, desperate for answers and reasons, "We are made of something different. That's why this sort of thing isn't as uncommon for our people as it is for other races," he gestured to the small swelling in Soren's belly and the look on the mage's face made Ike worry he might pull out a tome and send Stefan flying.)

"No. I can do it."

Soren lets his head fall back against the pillow and sighs. "Then do it." Ike's left hand touches Soren's, interlaces their fingers -- in all they've ever been through together Soren wonders if he's seen that much fear in those eyes since Greil died and left them all alone, "It's alright," Soren breathes, "I know you won't mean it."

He turns back to Rhys, who wordlessly guides his hand and blade to the midline of Soren's torso. Rhys' own hand follows with a heal staff, at the ready.

"Just small cuts at first," Rhys says quietly, "Gently, just to get through."

In all his life, when has Ike ever cut anything gently?

He presses the blade to Soren's skin and cuts him -- the skin is so taut it seems relieved to open, small beads of blood turning to oozing drops that quickly gather and stream down the side of him. Soren gasps as softly as he can manage. Ike wants nothing more than to screw his eyes shut.

He cuts again. The staff glows softly, only able to heal at its barest minimum lest it undo the work he's just done. "That's good," Rhys says, "Just keep going. Little cuts."

("Regardless of the state you're in, you aren't fully a woman, either," Stefan said, and Soren sneered back at him.

"I'm aware of that."

"There are often complications involved," Stefan held his hands up in surrender, "That's all I'm trying to tell you."

They all went quiet at that. "Complications?"

"About half have needed an abdominal delivery to get it out, and that's a whole other set of problems," Stefan said, "Though I've only known of a few others like you.")

It's taking too long. Ike has no idea how many slices he's made into the skin of his lover but he only feels more and more like a murderer. Something must be changing inside, because the soft hiss Soren made at the first incision became gasps, became groans, and now is only quiet.

(For months their little cottage had been bustling; Ike chopped firewood any spare moment he got. Soren, never much of a tailor, had taken up sewing in full force and had completed an infant's night gown.

Ike had laughed when he first laid eyes on it, "What, is this for his first birthday? It's huge."

Soren simply glowered back at him. "I don't have the most experience with babies," He huffed, and set back to pinning up the little thing to a more reasonable size.

They'd stayed busy. Distracted.)

Their cottage, their oasis in the mountains, is quickly as silent as a graveyard. As Ike goes further he realizes it's beginning to smell like a butcher's shop as well.

There's a pause, a needed break in the tension -- he hasn't had this much blood on his hands in a long, long time, but he puts up the wall. Every soldier's face he's watched the life drip out of he's been able to push out, not to think about -- he looks at Soren.

He immediately wishes he hadn't.

Red eyes are dull, barely focused somewhere behind him. His lips, normally so pink with how much he bites them in thought and how chapped they get, are white flower petals. Ike's heart freezes in his chest until he sees a breath, deep, difficult, rising in his chest. He squeezes Soren's hand. Weakly, barely, Soren squeezes back. Crumpled in his other hand is the night gown, a bright blue, with yellow flowers Soren had lovingly (clumsily) stitched himself.

Ike feels sick. He pauses and feels the burn of tears in his eyes, swears to himself he'll never touch Soren again, never do this to either of them again. If they have to be celibate forever it doesn't matter --

"We're almost there," frail Rhys has to be strong for the three of them, the end of his staff is still dripping shimmering magic into Soren's open abdomen and he gives Ike a forced smile.

One more cut, and he sees it. A sac, thin and slightly blue -- the veins running along it like cracks throb with every weak heartbeat. It looks just as strange and alien and nauseating as any of the other organs inside but then.

It moves.

And he remembers why they're there to begin with.

"There?"

"Yes. Just make a shallow one there."

It releases a rush of fluid once it's cut like a torn waterskin, gushing out over the sides and onto the floor, but the blankets are too bloodlogged to soak up anything more. The tissue gives way to reveal -- distinctly, almost familiar -- a head of dark hair. A baby, wet inside and curled up tight, seeming far too large for where it is.

His hands are red, trembling and slick and they don't seem like his own as he pulls his son from the hot, bleeding sac and holds him up in the sunlight.

He's a strange, ugly little thing, his face scrunched up as if in a grimace. The way he holds so still at first, moving only his tiny feet, makes Ike think of a newborn fawn in the forest, quivering and quiet when startled.

The boy doesn't stay quiet for long. He finds his lungs when he realizes the light of the sun and the cold mountain air are not at all what he's been accustomed to, and Ike holds him to his chest and gropes around for a blanket one-handed. Rhys presses a vulnerary to Soren's lips -- he's too tired to do anything but sip it, let it run down the side of his mouth-- and whispers a prayer.

The child is content once he's tightly bound up in a blanket, though he seems just as exhausted as everyone else in the room. Ike retakes Soren's hand for all the blood and fluid on it, laces their fingers together again and squeezes.

Every cut comes back together, one at a time. Slowly. The many long streams of blood on either side of Soren remain, dried in the air, not to be replaced.

The cord is tied off with thin string (Ike doesn't mind giving that a slice with his knife) and finally cut before the last of it is healed. What was a gaping red hole becomes instead an angry red scar -- still with much healing to do on its own. Rhys lets out a sigh of relief only once there is no more fresh blood and Soren lets out a breathless laugh. "You look dumbstruck," He says, and there's a little light back in his eyes. Ike hardly reacts, just glances at him and then continues staring down at that ugly baby face and wipes a smear of blood off his cheek. "You --" Soren tries to get up and immediately regrets it, reclining again with a gasp. "You did know I wasn't carrying around a tumor this whole time, mm?"

"He's so small," Ike says, breathlessly. Rhys washes his hands in a basin of now-chilled water and dries them before offering it to Ike. Ike sets the child in the crook of Soren's arm, making the little one fuss.

The blood comes off his hands easily, somehow. The blankets beneath them are probably ruined. He never takes his eyes off of the two of them -- the squinting baby as he begins to whimper reaches his hands out and Soren weakly offers him a thin finger to grasp.

"He's strong," the mage remarks with a sigh. There seems to be a little more color on his lips now, only enough to be seen when he smiles. "I guess -- you'll want to name him after Greil. Won't you?"

Ike sees the scar, huge and red and angry sticking up from pale flesh and frowns. "You can choose. I think you have that right."

"Maybe after I sleep a while," His eyes are already half-lidded; the baby starts up crying again.

"I think the child has other plans," Rhys says, and reaches a hand under Soren's back to delicately help him to sit up, "Welcome to parenthood."


End file.
